Flying Shoes
The tractor in front of Raphael's service station. I left two Avon brochures on the vinyl seat, natch.
My town drinks from a river that forgot how to run under a sky that forgot how to cry. Most townspeople call it the "Mighty" Gallinas, though it runs nearly dry now, barely trickles past sun-punished reeds, cuts this place into east and west, old and new. You could drop a match and light the sky. You could breathe the local green chili stew and ignite the air, evaporate the train station, the haunted Casteneda Hotel, the dilapidated roundhouse. The City Council voted extreme drought rules into effect a few weeks ago. No washing cars! No watering lawns! Restaurants can't wash coffee mugs, and tonight I walked past the restored wild west hotel where Roosevelt's Rough Riders held their first reunion in 1899, stood at the window, watched the bar where Doc Holliday held medical court, where Billy the Kid downed harsh whiskey. The bartender mixed good gold tequila and fresh lime in a salt-rimmed Dixie cup. Tough times.
I walk my Avon streets in this drought. My skin catches dust like my car windshield, leaves a soft patina of grime along my bare legs, my arms. Most days I kick my cowboy boots against the ground, let the loose dirt fly to heaven. No grass keeps it close to the ground, nothing alive, nothing awake beneath my feet. Please rain, I ask the blue above me, ask God, ask anyone, anything who might listen. Please rain. Please help us. The Gallinas continues to fade.
I stop at Raphael's service station, Fina, every time I haul my Avon brochures and attempt to hand them to people who might care. The business sits at the end of my street, across from the drought-dead car wash, the enforced-paper-cup Pizza Hut. Raphael bought the station this past week, paid for it in hope and pieces of paper labeled I.O.U.
Raphael shrugs his shoulders when I bring up the endless sun.
"Birdie, this is nature's circle. We must complete the cycle. Rain will come when it's time."
I never use any other gas station. I drive my car to Raphael's. I stand in his dinky convenience mart staring at the glass canister offering shots of shelled piñon nuts while he fills my tank. He doesn't let anyone else touch the pumps. The drivers take it easy, pass gas on their cell phones, consult maps and lipstick-torched cups of bitter coffee. They don't know there are places along most busy road where you must pump your own.
Raphael sports a long ponytail the way most Native Americans do around here. He decorates his gray hair with leather and beads, with silver tourniquets, with woven suede dangles. He doesn't fix his hair according to the weather. None of my compadres do. We wear the same styles, defy the sun, the wind, the relentless dust.
"Birdie, the wind determines our fate. If you're born in the wind, you can face a hundred heartaches. You can withstand the force of change. God Bless the babies born in the Spring."
I stared at Rapheal as he spouted tired nonsense, the words of the stuck-in-north-east-New-Mexico, the philosophy of the perpetually broke and tired. I jangled my keys, got ready to drive north, to Santa Fe, to someplace cultured, remembered.
"God, Raphael, I don't want the wind anymore. I thought New Mexico was quiet. I thought the mountains would offer me rest. Geeze, this place is like a sink hole. It's collecting my thoughts. It swallows them, this harsh wind. I'm so tired of these same old blues."
Rapheal smiled. He didn't say a word.
Once a month Raphael holds "Customer Appreciation Day." He tapes a crooked hand-written sign to his grime-coated window. Please come in and celebrate!
I carted sixteen overstuffed Avon brochures the day of Raphael's Customer Appreciation Day this past month. I taped the new Anew Clinical Eye Lift samples to the glossy pages of my bible, let them tempt my imaginary customers into a life of youthful expression. I carried the only gifts I had - three tubes of coconut-flavored Avon lipbalm, a spray bottle of Avon Bug Guard, and a handful of samples for the new Shine fragrance.
"Hey Raphael! What's up, man!" I waved Hello and opened the door to his shop.
Raphael continued filling the pump of some tired local elementary teacher. She slumped in the seat of her beat Ford Escort as if five minutes of fuel were twelve hours of good sleep. I waved, but she didn't recognize me, or didn't care. Raphael's wife bid me hello.
"Bienvenido, Birdie! You shilling your Avon shit?" She uttered the Spanglish that 70 percent of my county spoke, a Castilian Spanish over 400 years old, pushed a place of cinnamon-laced biscochitos my way. I accepted a cookie, took a bite.
"Hey, yeah. I am always shilling Avon shit. Geeze. What a crappy life." I handed her a brochure and extra samples and dropped my backpack on the counter. "So what's Raphael got up his sleeve for this Customer Appreciation Day?"
His wife laughed and pointed at the left side of the counter. "The usual, hon. Help yourself." She added something in Spanish, something about drinking in good health, and I eyed the open gallons of Jack Daniel's and Jim Beam.
"Pick your poison, Bird." Raphael pushed the glass door before him, gave his wife a twenty, motioned to the Dixie cups towering toward the gas station ceiling. A policeman entered behind my friend, grabbed a cup, filled it with a generous portion of whiskey, let it settle his stomach. I did the same.
"Doesn't this promote drinking and driving?" I questioned Raphael, downed my drink with a groan, my feet my only transportation.
"Birdie, this land is dry enough."
I walked home four shots later, my feet sending Jack and Jim thank yous to some other plane of existence, my coconut lipbalm sitting on Raphael's counter for anyone who wanted more of a Piña Colada existence.
"Raphael," I whispered as I left. "Raphael. You have the name of an angel, but you're a devil. You know that, right?"
He laughed, waved goodbye.
I tripped home, my feet sending bad dirt anyway they could. The sky sighed, collected my alcohol breath like bad checks, didn't signal relief.
9:17:20 PM 
|
